Route 66 - Day Three (Joplin, MO to Elk City, TX)

To preface Day 3, since I got an internet connection on the night of Day 2, I was like a heroin addicted kid in a smack candy store. So I stayed up until 2 a.m., not doing anything particularly important. I hate you, internet.

This led into my mood on Day 4: CRANKY AND TIRED. It was the overarching theme of the day. What was worse, it was my day to drive. So Iv and I did a lot of bickering, 'cause he was a bit cranky, too, but his wasn't due to lack of sleep.

Leaving Montana, we wanted to stay mostly faithful to old Route 66, so we cut through the south-east corner of Kansas. A lot of 'Dust in the Wind' and 'Wizard of Oz' comments ensued. I don't think Ivan liked me calling him 'Dorothy' for the drive through.

The only thing of semi-note we saw in Baxter Springs was a cafe that used to be a bank that Frank & Jesse James held up. It's now a 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' featured restaurant (that wasn't open when we got there).

Next: O-kla-homa! Where the wind blows gently through the trees! Commerce and Miami were towns that got bypassed by the interstate, and shrivelled up. Nice towns, but sad to see what they were now vs. what they were like.

Commerce was also notable due to me changing out of my shorts and into pants on Main Street. It was freezing! I severely underestimated the temperature getting warmer (which it didn't until Texas).

Past Miami, we had the privilege of driving part of the original Route 66 highway that was a one-lane highway (also known as the 9 foot highway, or the Sidewalk Highway). We took it for a few miles. No maintenance to it since at least the early 70s, if not earlier, so there were a lot of parts where the pavement was gone.

We stopped in Vinita. Why? For calf fries, of course, at Clanton's Cafe. It was another 'Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives' place, but I didn't realize this until we were inside and there was a pic of Guy Fieri on the wall.

Super friendly people in Clanton's. Our waitress was nice, and so was Jim, a regular who came over to talk to us, and tell stories about Vinita (one I remember was that he claimed the first commercial signal from space was in Vinita due to a local who invented a garage door opener that malfunctioned and bounced off of Sputnik when it was passing overhead in 1957).

What are calf fries? Calf fries = prairie oysters = bull testicles. Iv refused to try them, but I thought, "why not?" People eat them down here. They weren't bad, but nothing special.

Jim told us that they don't have the best ones here, and that farmers usually keep the better ones for themselves.

Pictured: me and balls; our friendly waitress; Ivan & Jim)




We didn't eat again until Oklahoma City (OKC), which was NOT smart. Tired and cranky combined with low blood sugar made for more bickering. Over what, I can't remember now. But it wasn't a good trip.

We stopped at the Catoosa Blue Whale, and talked to the local guys running the thing. It was a nice stop. From there, we drove through Tulsa, mainly to see Oral Roberts University and the giant praying hands (which I believe were modelled after the 900 foot Jesus Oral Roberts had a vision of).

There's a huge amount of money sunk into that place, which you're not aware of until you see the size of the buildings and the amount of flair in how they're designed.

We took more of old 66 to OKC, and planned to stop at Russ's Ribs in Bristow for a late lunch. But it was closed. Blargh!

We pressed onward to the Rock Cafe in Stroud (which a lot of the feel of the movie 'Cars' was based on, apparently. It looked nice, but was a dive inside, so Ivan wanted to keep going. Double blargh!

Arcadia was nice on old 66: it had a historic round barn that was restored, and an old rock gas station that wasn't. Both were worth seeing.
(Arcadia round barn & Arcadia square, roofless, gasless gas station)

Finally, OKC. Blood sugar was dangerously low. My driving was getting more frazzled, and my mood ring was midnight black. We stopped and ate at Earl's, which was a bit chain-y, but had good food. Though I was starving, I couldn't finish the amount of food on my plate: ribs, brisket, Italian sausage links, and fried baloney, plus a loaded baked potato and baked beans.

What was very moving to see, but didn't help the mood, was going to the Oklahoma City Memorial after dinner. I was choked up, despite not knowing too much about the Oklahoma City bombing. I don't think being tired helped, either, but seeing the individual children's memorials was pretty sad.

Again, we drove: on to Elk City, where we found a Day's Inn and collapsed. BUT...before collapsing, I fiddled around with my network settings, and realized there was an ID-10-T error with my computer: I had put ultra-high security on it, which precluded my computer from accessing most free wi-fi hotspots.

Grr...maybe this will help wean me off of the internet. Maybe.